Sergio Renán

Sergio Renán
Sergio Renán (left)
Born	Samuel Kohan (1933-01-30)30 January 1933 Buenos Aires
Died	13 June 2015(2015-06-13) (aged 82) Buenos Aires
Occupation	Film director Screenwriter Actor
Years active	1951 – 2007

Sergio Renán (30 January 1933 – 13 June 2015) was an Argentine actor, film director, and screenwriter.

Born Samuel Kohan in Buenos Aires in 1933, his parents were Jewish immigrants who had lived in one of the numerous Jewish agricultural colonies in Entre Ríos Province. Renán became an accomplished violinist in his teens and, following a minor film role in Mario Soffici's 1951 drama Pasó en mi barrio (It Happened in My Neighborhood), he joined the theatre as an actor and continued to appear in supporting roles in Argentine cinema. His directorial debut came on the stage in 1970 with his production of Jean Genet's The Maids. Following a number of prominent film roles for directors Leopoldo Torre Nilsson and Manuel Antin, Renán's film script for Mario Benedetti's novel, The Truce, was produced in 1974. Starring Hector Alterio, the May–December romance was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the first Argentine film so honored.

This success was followed by another adaptation of a novel, Crecer de golpe (Growing Up Suddenly, 1976), based on Haroldo Conti's coming-of-age tale. At odds with the right-wing dictatorship installed in 1976, Renán nevertheless directed a propaganda film, La fiesta de todos, on the 1978 FIFA World Cup (played in and won by Argentina). In 1979 he starred as the main character in El Poder de las tinieblas, a dark film with political undertones, telling the story of a man ( Renán) who has discovered a global conspiracy against blind people. Then, in 1980, he directed and took the lead role in Sentimental, and received his first Konex Award (the highest in the Argentine cultural realm), the following year. The film was also entered into the 12th Moscow International Film Festival.